Mayer wins Gerry We­ber Open

HALLE WESTFALEN (Ger­many)—Out­sider Flo­rian Mayer won the Gerry We­ber Open ti­tle, com­ing out on top in an all-Ger­man fi­nal against teenager Alexan­der Zverev.

Flo­rian Mayer brought com­pa­triot Alexan­der Zverev back down to earth by end­ing his long wait for a ti­tle at the Gerry We­ber Open on Sun­day.

World num­ber 192 Mayer had not claimed an ATP sin­gles tour­na­ment vic­tory since back in 2011 be­fore see­ing off fel­low-Ger­man Zverev 6-2 5-7 63 in Halle in a tri­umph for ex­pe­ri­ence over youth.

Out­sider Mayer was re­duced to tears af­ter be­com­ing the low­est-ranked cham­pion in the grass-court event on home soil, with teenager Zverev emo­tional for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons af­ter miss­ing out on a maiden ti­tle.

Zverev de­throned the leg­endary eight-time Gerry We­ber Open cham­pion Roger Fed­erer at the semi-fi­nal stage on Satur­day, but was un­able to be­come the youngest ATP Tour cham­pion for eight years.

The 19-year-old, play­ing his sec­ond ATP World Tour fi­nal of the year, racked up six dou­ble faults and was bro­ken four times to suf­fer de­feat in only the sec­ond all-Ger­man fi­nal in Halle.

A fired up Mayer beat the in-form Do­minic Thiem to book his place in the fi­nal and took charge of the show­down with the Next Gen­er­a­tion star by reel­ing off four games in a row to take the open­ing set.

Zverev hit back in the sec­ond, tak­ing a 2-0 lead and sav­ing two match points when the un­seeded 32-year-old Mayer had the chance to serve for the tour­na­ment be­fore set­ting up a de­cider.

Mayer put that set­back be­hind him, claim­ing the only break of the fi­nal set to lead 42 and then sav­ing a break point prior to this time serv­ing out the match, sink­ing to his knees af­ter Zverev put a fore­hand long.—AFP

World No. 192 Flo­rian Mayer cap­tured his first ti­tle in nearly five years at Halle, de­feat­ing Alexan­der Zverev in three sets.